Celtics offseason to-do list: What’s on tap for Brad Stevens this summer?

The Celtics will be quite busy in the 2025 offseason. However, unlike years past, they may be among the league's sellers rather than the team that gears up to make a run.

Impending salary cap complications, aging players, and Jayson Tatum's injury will force the Celtics to go through a retooling of assets this summer. Impactful players are likely to be headed out via trade, while other areas of the team could use a fresh upgrade.

Here's the Celtics' offseason to-do list for 2025...

The first and most important piece on the Celtics' agenda will, undoubtedly, be to rid themselves of the impending penalties they face for exceeding the NBA second salary apron - and to a lesser extent, the luxury tax. As Matt Dolloff of 98.5 The Sports Hub points out, the Celtics currently face nearly a quarter billion dollars in just tax related bills and an overall payroll that exceeds half a billion dollars.

Clearly, the Celtics and their new ownership group will be selling off pieces in hopes of a more balanced budget. Chris Forsberg of NBC Sports Boston discussed exactly how much must be cut for the Celtics to appease the various tax thresholds, during his recent appearance on Toucher & Hardy.

According to Forsberg, the Celtics must cut at least $20 million to get under the second apron, which for the Celtics may be the end of the cost cutting. However, the arguably more likely scenario is the Celtics will try to get under both the second apron and the luxury tax. They would need to dump nearly $40 million in contracts to do so. Either way, Boston will need to move one, if not multiple, key roster pieces to drop below one or more thresholds.

How they will do that? Here are some of their options...

The next order of business will be to determine how Jaylen Brown fits into their long-term plans. Obviously, in an ideal world the Celtics would like to keep Brown for the life of his contract (through the 2028-29 season), and build around him. But for reasons mentioned above, someone has to be moved.

Now of course, there are other players (Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porziņģis) who they could move to cut salary, but Brown would bring the greatest return in a trade to Boston.

So, the decision will be whether the Celtics prefer to stick with the Brown/Tatum duo fans have grown to love, or they're forced to shake things up.

With that they will need to consider the age of both guys, but especially Brown. Tatum could end up returning during Brown's age-30 season. The injury may have unfortunately shortened the Celtics' timeline with the era of the Jay's before they age out of their primes, whenever that may be.

Does that mean the Celtics are guaranteed to move Brown? Of course not, but now they may want to explore the idea, see what's out there. For now, he'll carry cap hits of $53.1 million, $57 million, $61 million, and $64.9 million over the next four seasons (via Spotrac).

The third consideration for Brad Stevens and the Celtics: what they will do with their big men going forward?

For one, they may very well be without Al Horford, who celebrates his 39th birthday Tuesday. Horford has been a productive player and strong veteran leader in his two stints with the C's, but considering his age and status as an impending free agent, his future in Boston is uncertain. They must get younger in the frontcourt, with or without Horford on the roster.

Then there is Porziņģis.

Despite the center having moments of dominance in Boston, he's often restricted from playing due to various ailments - most recently his sickness that limited for most of the postseason. Plus, he will turn 30 in the summer and comes with a $30.7 million contract that expires at the end of next season.

Granted, there are questions regarding what kind of value Porziņģis would bring in a trade, but he's not the long-term solution either. Getting his bill off the books would help the Boston payroll conundrum.

No matter how they do it in the offseason, the Celtics need to freshen up their bigs. It's hard to imagine that they'll return with Porzingis and Horford leading the way once again, without changes.

Picture this: The team that far exceeded their counterparts in 3-point attempts continued to abundantly launch threes into the playoffs. But their run ended with an early exit in the Eastern Conference Semifinals to a lesser opponent, because they failed to adjust when the threes wouldn't fall.

Obviously, that was the fate for the Celtics as they were knocked out of playoff contention by a New York Knicks team that was prepared for the three. Boston attempted 48.2 threes per game, which was nearly six more than the Warriors who shot the second most (via StateMuse). This strategy, in turn, was not a winning philosophy in the playoffs as they failed to hit the three in key moments.

So, the Celtics most definitely need to think long and hard about their usage of the three. Head coach Joe Mazzulla has been on record saying that the most important statistic in the NBA is 3-point attempts, but in the end it didn't work.

Boston could go back to this same tactic in hopes they fade a similar result, or using the 2025 playoffs as a case study to suggest their philosophy was flawed, they could look to incorporate different strategies into their game.

Will they?

Who knows, but they at least have to have the conversation about switching things up so they aren't so reliant on the three and predictable in the most important moments.

With Tatum out for possibly all of next season, someone's going to need to make up for his lost shot attempts. So, the Celtics will need to add someone productive to fill a big need on the wing, at least for one season.

This is where a trade that sends a guy like Porziņģis or Holiday would be important. When moving one of those two, which in all likelihood they will, Boston could seek a forward in return. At the same time, they will need to make sure that they can still cut some money.

Complicated? Sure, but the Celtics have little choice. Their luxury tax situation is going to severely restrict the kinds of moves they can make. In the end, they must be happy with getting a serviceable and inexpensive player(s) for a guy like Holiday, who is owed $32.4 million in 2025-26.

At the end of the day, the Celtics are going to have to make some difficult decisions in the offseason. Everybody already knew that the bills were going to come due at some point, but the injury to Tatum only further complicates things. They must make peace with the reality that their talent level will take a step back in the short-term.

Luke Graham is a digital sports content co-op for 98.5 the Sports Hub. He is currently a sophomore at Northeastern University studying communications and media studies. Read all his articles here, and follow him on X @LukeGraham05.